In an evangelical culture that honors self-justification, image-management, and conspiracies more than humility, contrition and the fear of the Lord, the household of God desperately needs to rediscover the blessed wisdom and strength of “radical repentance”.

When the age-old voice howls for us to fashion fig leaves for our own unrighteousness, while accusing and condemning others in their’s, we must learn to run to a “zealous repentance” (Revelation 3:19) that will firmly plant us in the sure mercies of God.

The latin word for “radical” literally means “to get to the root”. Because sin is primarily a heart issue, and not just a surface issue, repentance, by definition should always be, “radical”.

The Hebrew word that the Bible most often uses for “repentance” is the word, “SHUBV”. SHUBV is a radical term that literally means “to put fire to your house and leave with God”.

The Hebrew characters in the word (Hebrew being a pictorial language) actually visualize the activity of a man setting fire to his house.

SHUBV is making a radical life-correction, abandoning an old way of living, to do life God’s way, with God Himself.

Therefore say to the house of Israel, “Thus says the Lord God: ‘Repent (SHUBV), turn away from your idols, and turn your faces away from all your abominations.” (Ezekiel 14:6)

It’s the Lord’s kindness (Romans 2:4) to expose the dangerous inadequacy of our ways. His call to SHUBV repentance is an invitation for us to leave our rickety, self-constructed, rat-ridden, self-governance and begin a new life under the health and soundness of His leadership.

The Lord gives us a provocative real-life vision of SHUBV in Genesis 19 when He calls Lot and his family to leave Sodom and Gomorrah as the Lord Himself “rains down burning sulfur” (Genesis 19:24) and sets fire to their house.

The season of 2020 has been all about the King “burning down our old normals” so that He may bring us into the order of His new, dawning normal. Throughout these cataclysmic events He’s been asking us: “How willing are you to have Me? Do you see that through plagues and race-riots and political treachery I am helping you to ‘burn your insufficient house down’ so that you may live in My superior dwelling? Do you understand that I am dismantling your meager perception and human-powered reasoning in order to bring you into My eternal frame of mind? As I am bringing My government to this world I want you with Me, thinking My thoughts, enjoying My emotions, agreeing with My judgments and thriving in My wisdom.”

Some of the corrections we need to make will be less costly than others. On the other hand, other life-adjustments will require that the Lord “take us by the hand” (Genesis 19:23) in order to appropriate the “radical” nature of the new normal. 

Jesus issued this immoderate remedy to our tendency to resist “burning the house down and leaving”:   If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. (Matthew 5:29)

Will we spurn His diagnosis and oppose this treatment? Or though it be drastic, will we amputate death so He may fit us with life? This is the question that confronts us in SHUBV repentance.

Now great multitudes went with Him. And He turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple… Whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple.” (Luke 14:25-27 & 33)

The call to Radical Repentance reflects the claim that God has on the lives of those of us that He has redeemed. It’s a mark of our “laissez-faire”, “(self) manifest destiny” culture (as opposed to the call we actually hear Jesus giving us in the gospels) that we would view Christianity as an invitation to anything less extreme than SHUBV.

Here are 31 qualities of “Radical (SHUBV) Repentance”:

1. Radical Repentance calls our soul to the Lord’s threshing floor.

2. Radical Repentance engages the Holy Spirit in a thorough winnowing process that operates out of
a.) a fear of the Lord,
b.) an awareness that He is worthy to receive everything of us,
c.) a vision of the the holy intimacy He’s calling us to,
d.) and a confidence in the supremacy of His mercy.

3. Radical Repentance “IS” messy. (Get used to it… We WANT to get used to it…)

4. Radical Repentance looks for nakedness, despising excuses…

5. Radical Repentance ALWAYS asks: “What is the eternal King of Glory worthy of?”

6. Radical Repentance takes time… often.

7. Radical Repentance is rooted to the voice of the HOLY Spirit unveiling the heart in the light of the Word…

8. Radical Repentance is one of the key signs of a sober and clear-eyed church, and/or House of Prayer in the hours of tribulation…

9. Radical Repentance is a life-style choice, not a two-hour annual event.

10. Radical Repentance is the way of Isaiah 40:3-5, and John the Baptist that prepares us for the return of the King.

11. Radical Repentance is a “Holy Spirit and me” thing that dares to get at the root of my “flesh-centered thinking”.

12. Radical Repentance winces at the mention of “our rights”.

13. Radical Repentance aims at “meekness”.

14. Radical Repentance always always always leads us to His cross and our own. Radical Repentance refuses to have one without the other.

15. Radical Repentance looks for shared ways and common avenues rather than narrow boundaries of separation and distinction… Simply put: It’s an “us” thing. Not a “them back then”, or “them over there” thing.

16. Radical Repentance is focused on and motivated by the increase of Jesus – not better religion.

17. Radical Repentance looks at the sin and darkness that plagues our culture and asks: “How are my thoughts, narratives, beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, spirit and words contributing to this?”

18. Radical Repentance asks: “How do my thoughts, narratives, beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, spirit and words contribute to unbelief, adultery, lack of first-commandment love, insensitivity, hostility, murder, rebellion, superficial worship, idolatry and unrighteousness?”

19. Radical Repentance also asks: “Where am I more zealous to accuse others of unrighteousness than I am to surrender my whole self to repentance for the purpose of living in whole-hearted righteousness?”

20. Radical Repentance looks at abortion and asks: “How am I contributing to the discarding of human life?” Where am I aborting the Word of God? Where am I turning a blind eye to the pornification of women? Where am I insensitive to the distress of minority conditions? etc.”

21. Radical Repentance looks at gun violence and asks: “How am I contributing to a violent spirit in our culture? How do I turn a blind-eye to the madness in adolescent souls? How am I trusting in the power of a gun to keep me safe? How am I trusting in the power of laws to protect my society from demonic principalities? How am I allowing my rights to usurp my cross, and the beatitudes?”

22. Radical Repentance looks at sexual perversion and asks: “How am I contributing to sexual perversion in my culture? Where do I wink at pornographic content? Where do I excuse predatory sexual behavior? Where do I allow my sexual appetites to rule my relationship(s)? etc.”

23. Radical Repentance finds no cover in conspiracies. In fact, it knows that “conspiracy” is the alternate state to the spirit of repentance. In the face of judgment that falls upon the just and the unjust, Radical Repentance prays: “Father, see if there be any wicked way in me (Psalm 139:24); show me where I am hiding myself from Your holy analysis of my life in a lie or a conspiracy.”

24. Radical Repentance looks at the Sermon on the Mount and allows the Holy Spirit to scrutinize “self” in light of all 55 of Jesus’ injunctions.

25. Radical Repentance looks at the Father’s heart for Israel and asks, “Where is my perception of of Israel out of sync with Your heart for Israel? Where are my thoughts about Israel and Your purposes for Israel too rooted in the way of the flesh, and not established in the light and promise of Your Word?”

26. Radical Repentance looks at our lives of prayer and asks, “Where have I allowed myself, and my church to become impoverished in prayer? How is my life of prayer different than Jesus’ life of prayer? How am I neglecting Jesus’ exhortation for me to engage Him in the place of corporate intercession?”

27. Radical Repentance looks at Political Idolatry and asks: “Where am I looking for political power to accomplish what I should be investing in God to accomplish? Where have I shunned righteous circumspection that is opening my soul and the soul of my nation to real evil?”

28. Radical Repentance looks at Idolatrous Nationalism and asks: “Where do I believe and further a lie about our nation? Where do I not tolerate truth to be told and taught about our nation? What about my nation am I exalting higher than God does? Where have I sacrificed integrity to Jesus’ Kingdom in my attempts to make my nation greater? How have I expressed love for my nation more than my love for Jesus?”

29. Radical Repentance looks at Racial Hostility and asks: “How are my attitudes contributing toward racial animosity? How does what I say about my nation’s past hurt other people-groups, and further a righteous vision of nationhood more than the gracious nature of God? How am I failing to champion and celebrate God’s mercy, goodness and destiny re other ethnic groups?”

30. Radical Repentance is the only kind of repentance the Bride of Christ can afford in this hour.

31. We will only engage Radical SHUBV Repentance to the degree to which we behold the beauty and majesty of Jesus. He is the One worth burning our house down for.

If the Church in America hopes to fulfill our primary mandate; calling our curse-compounded world to prepare for the approaching reign of the King, now is the hour to fill our prayers, our worship gatherings, our ZOOM meetings and our conferences with Radical Repentance.

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JSB • July 10, 2022

In the Old Testament the phrase “fear of the Lord” is NOT attached to the hebrew word for “awe” (יגורו), meaning “dwell together”.

The two words the Bible uses in the phrase “fear of the Lord” is 1.) the Hebrew word for fear (יראת), and 2.) the greek word for fear (φόβos). Both of these words mean “fear, terror, terrifying”.

When the Lord gives us a fear of the Lord…

…it comes with a real, holy dread and apprehension that “undoes” our casual, laid-back spirit;

…it challenges all our paradigms;

…it creates real crisis in our lives;

…it shakes our foundations;

…it causes us to examine all our ways;

…it cross-examines all our pet theological beliefs;

In a season of the fear of the Lord, day after day your spirit is recast into (Matthew 5:3) “poverty”; the alarm and trembling is real; and because the face to Face encounter is nakedly substantial – the hunger for more is like daily having your spirit set on “auto-pilot into an incinerator”. (Hebrews 12:29)

The “fear of the Lord” is Abraham with Isaac laying on the altar (Genesis 22).

It’s barefoot Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3), and then wedging himself in a rock in (Exodus 33:22).

It’s Joshua after asking his binary question of the commander of the Lord’s army (Joshua 5:15); and the one who couldn’t bring himself to leave the tent (Exodus 33:11).

It’s Joshua again, standing outside of Achan’s tent (Joshua 7).

It’s David in (Psalm 27:4) and then in the presence of Nathan (2 Samuel 12).

It’s John (Mark 1:7) before the One Whose sandals he wouldn’t dare to untie.

It’s Peter (Luke 5:8) before the holy Messiah.

It’s Peter, James and John on the Mount of transfiguration (Mark 9:7).

It’s Herod’s guards in the garden (John 18:6), and then the Roman guards at the tomb (Matthew 28:4).

It’s the Roman centurion at the cross under the storming sky and the shaking earth (Mark 15:39).

It’s John on his face (Revelation 1:17) before the One Who held seven stars in His right hand.

I am praying for me, our community and our American, evangelical family to engage a fear of the Lord that we struggle to describe, and have no strength to get up from.

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JSB • July 8, 2022

“These things says He who holds the SEVEN STARS in His right hand, who walks in the midst of the SEVEN GOLDEN LAMP STANDS.” (Revelation 2:1)

“Corporate” Is Uniquely Difficult for Western Christianity
One of the elements of the Kingdom that 21c western Christianity struggles with is the degree to which we are “corporate”, and not merely “individual”. The Lord (all throughout the Bible) sees and treats humanity on the basis of our “corporate” nature/influence much more than we 21c Americans believe, teach – or like.

Yes. Each of us will ultimately be judged for our own individual covenant relationship with Jesus Christ (Revelation 20;15) But we are greatly influenced (for both good and bad) by the views and values of our corporate family, community and nation – much much more than we often acknowledge.

By neglecting to let God refine and purge our corporate ways, norms, sins and standards we leave influential idols on the high places of our culture, and these idols infect our individual hearts with destructive lies of the enemy.

The judgments of the Lord are primarily about the Lord bringing both reward and rebuke for the ways of family, community and culture.

It’s so vital that we understand how the Lord deals with us in a corporate way in this hour. If we don’t understand this Biblical truth, we can easily find ourselves working against the Lord. On the other hand, if we give ourselves to this reality we will find ourselves (note this is plural) in new dimensions of freedom, authority and maturity unto the glory of our King!

The Kingdom Precedent for Corporate
Jesus, the prophets and the apostles spend a great deal of time addressing the ways of corporate people groups because He/they know three things:
1. We are greatly influenced (for both good and bad) by the values of our friends, family, and culture
2. We greatly need each other if we are to go deep in vibrant righteousness. (Satan knows this too…)
3. Jesus is returning for a corporate Bride; not just a collection of individuals.

Repentance is meant to be a corporate endeavor, not merely an individual endeavor. It’s meant to be both, because both greatly influence the nature and destiny of our soul.

The Biblical Testimony of Our Corporate Nature
2 Chronicles 7:13-14 is a call to corporate repentance.
“If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14)

The Psalms are filled with references to corporate and generational blessings and corporate and generational curses.

Joel 2 is a call to corporate repentance.
“Blow the trumpet in Zion, call a sacred assembly; gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders… Let them say, ‘Spare Your people, O Lord, and do not give Your heritage to reproach.” (Joel 2:15,17)

Daniel 9 is a prayer of corporate identification and corporate repentance.

Lamentations is a book of corporate repentance.

Jesus speaks woes upon corporate groups of people.
“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.” (Matthew 11:21)
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.” (Matthew 23:13-15)

Peter addresses the corporate sins of the people in Acts 2:36-37
“Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart…” (Acts 2:36-37)

In Acts 17:11 the whole church in Berea is commended for the nobility of their ways.
“These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.”(Acts 17:11)

Paul’s mindset is continually addressing the corporate dynamics in the churches he writes to – for both encouragement and for reprimand and correction.

In the end, the whole Bride makes herself (corporate) ready. (Revelation 19:7) It isn’t some are ready and others are not.
“Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and HIS WIFE has made HERSELF ready.” (Revelation 19:7)
From the whole testimony of scripture, we understand that the Holy Spirit has the capacity to bring the whole Bride into first commandment love for Jesus. This is perhaps the greatest miracle, sign and wonder of history. Our mutual, corporate, wholehearted adoration and proclamation of Jesus will be the pinnacle witness and testimony to the redemptive power of God. Our unity under the reign of Christ will be the dagger in the heart of the devil.

He wanted to divide and conquer and separate us from God, and each other through hostility and alienation. Perhaps the Lord’s supreme expression of the depth of His power to save will be put on display through our unified acclamation of Jesus as the One King that we all submit to. The declaration “Jesus is Lord” is actually, “Jesus is OUR Lord!” This is the complete undoing of the dynamic of blame and enmity that satan sowed into the hearts of Adam and Eve in the garden.
“The Lord said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?” Then the man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” (Genesis 3:11-13)

The Seven Churches in Revelation 2 and 3
Jesus addresses seven spiritual communities in Revelation 2 and 3.

In the seven churches of Revelation we hear the Lord releasing four realities into corporate bodies:
1. Corporate Commendation – The commendations that Jesus issues have real, cascading/viral blessing attached to them.
2. Corporate Rebuke and Correction – The rebuke that Jesus issues to corporate groups address real sins that can also compound, delude and harden a people-group in the ways of unrighteousness.
3. Corporate Warning – The warnings are issued corporately, because we are meant to help guard each other from the ways of unrighteousness.
4. Corporate Promises – The promises are issued corporately, because Jesus knows that we need each other to propel us deep into the reward of righteousness, and because part of the great reward of righteousness is enjoying it corporately. There is a greater joy to be had in celebrating corporate righteousness than there is in celebrating private righteousness. (This is why you never want to hit a hole-in-one by yourself. We were made for mutual celebration.)

It’s significant that Jesus specifically calls the seven churches (corporate) to repentance seven times. Not one of those exhortations are a call to individual repentance. They’re each a call for corporate repentance.

Vital Current Controversy
We are the inheritors of a great corporate blessing from the foundations of our nation. We are also inheritors of great potential threats from the curses (like any group of fallen creatures) attached to the foundations of our nation. We need to take both as seriously as God does. He does not only see us as individuals. He also sees how inextricably linked we are to each other; to our forefathers and to our children’s children. We bear a debt of mutual responsibility to each other.

This also goes for churches, church cultures, regions and families. We inherit both the strengths and the weaknesses of the corporate groups we are a part of. This is the way we were made.

We were made for family and community. God is family and community. We are called to family and community.

The enemy wants to divide us and separate us from each other. He knows the wisdom of “separate and conquer”.

There is a powerful two-fold spiritual truth attached to the corporate that the end-times Church must avail herself of:
1. We will go further and deeper and more brilliant in righteousness and Christlikeness in the company of others.
2. We will also go further and deeper and blinder in unrighteousness and godless idolatry in the company of others.  This is the testimony and lesson we can derive from all 66 books of the Bible. Every single one.

This is why Paul admonishes those who are caught in the downward spiral of sin:
THEY did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave THEM over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; THEY are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also give hearty approbation to those who practice them. (Romans 1:28-32)

This is also why Jesus takes our mutual influence and potential to cause others to sin so seriously.
“But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” (Matthew 18:6)
“My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment.” (James 3:1)

There are more than 100 references to “one another” in the New Testament. The Lord knows, indeed, He has built within us the capacity to enlarge and enhance each other through corporate life together. (This is why every team wants to play the championship game on their home field. It’s called the home-field advantage for a reason!)
“Exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.”(Hebrews 3:13)

“Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works,not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.” (Hebrews 10:24,25)

We Need Each Other to Cultivate A Responsiveness Posture to the Lord’s Prophetic Voice
“Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common.” (Acts 2:44)

We need spiritual family to help us be responsive to the Lord’s voice. We need to live and be surrounded a culture that values:
1. A Spirit of Humility
2. Prioritizing the Pursuit of First Commandment love
3. Fear of the Lord
4. Maintaining a Spirit of Repentance
5. Lifestyles of Corporate Prayer

One of the most vital things pastors and leaders in the body of Christ can do in this hour is to realize our capacity to help each other prioritize cultivating these five traits of responsiveness to the Lord. Cultivating communal values for these five values is great spiritual warfare in this hour.

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JSB • June 29, 2022

Singer, Kendrick Lamar closed the Glastonbury Music festival Sunday night with the song / chant: “Godspeed for women’s rights”

“Forced pregnancy is a crime against humanity.” (NY Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez)

“It’s burn it to the ground time.” (Seattle Sounder soccer player, Megan Rapinoe)

“The whims of idealogues have attacked the essential freedom of millions of Americans.” (Barack Obama)

“I am pro-abortion. I loved my abortion.” (Billie Eilish)

Watching the world’s colective, demonic rage against the Dobbs’ decision may be the most bonafide, objective verification of the God of the Bible we’ve seen in a long time.

And yet, in even this, God is manifesting His justice. When His Son returns to rule the earth His judgment of 7.8 billion human hearts will be “altogether just, and true, and righteous” (Revelation 16:7). 

People argue, “How can a loving God order people to go to hell???” 

On the day that the world sees the resurrected Jesus return to earth to set up His government, they (Planned Parenthood, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, Starbucks, Ms. Rapinoe, and Mr. Lamar) will tragically love their sinful ways and opinions no less than they do today. They will rage for their right to abort human life no less than they do today. 

The Father will not suffer insurrection against fidelity to His Son. (See Psalm 2) The supreme expression of justice on the earth is that our Redeemer King is worshipped and loved and honored by all of creation. His judgment (to finally turn human beings over to the torment and fear that’s been raging in their hearts) will be altogether just and true and righteous. They will not love nor submit to the way Jesus administrates His reign over humanity any more in His presence than in His absence.

This is also why it is SO VITAL that the Church respond to the (1 Peter 4:17-18) judgments of the Lord in this hour by giving the world an example of how to respond to a holy, sovereign and gracious God. If the world sees us casting off the judgments of the Lord with self-justification and violently demanding our own way, they will find no reason, and see no example of how, or why to respond to the Lord any differently than we have.

The judgments upon the Church right now are intended to be a witness to those who don’t know that there is a salvation to be had from the tyranny and murderous ways of unrighteousness.

The way into that salvation is through HUMILITY • CONTRITION • REPENTANCE • IN THE FEAR OF THE LORD

“As soon as we heard these things, our hearts melted; neither did there remain any more courage in anyone because of you (and the way you responded to the sovereign judgments of the Lord), for the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath… So the two men… said to Joshua, ‘Truly the Lord has delivered all the land into our hands, for indeed all the inhabitants of the country are fainthearted because of us.” (Joshua 2:11 and 23)

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JSB • June 27, 2022

Since America’s last “revival” in the 70’s, our “born-again” spiritual family has had a spate of high-profile leaders exposed for fraud and numerous adulterous affairs in the 80’s…

In the 90’s we also unanimously elected a man who was having multiple gay affairs to be the president of the National Association of Evangelicals…

In the 2000’s scores of evangelical leaders publicly celebrated a young minister who was sexually grooming his interns as “God’s man for this generation”…

In the 2010’s predatory sexual behavior became an epidemic…

…including thousands of sexual harassment cases being brought ag the largest evangelical denomination in the world, and the removal of one of the most sought after evangelical teacher/leaders in our culture…

In 2020 the president of the largest evangelical institution in the nation was abruptly removed from his multiple education and political posts for bizarre sexual sin…

…this same man was one of the very first to wholeheartedly endorse our 45th President; the first twice-divorced man to seek the office; and who openly flaunted his pornographic, adulterous sin prior to winning 82% of our vote…

Maybe it’s time to consider that we’ve spent a generation being deluded by crossless evangelicalism…

Maybe it’s time to NOT believe what our evangelical leaders are saying about a life-long cheater’s behavior re: January 6…

Maybe it’s time to listen to Nathan…

Maybe it’s time to stop this nonsense about God giving cultural prominence to us…

Maybe it’s time to recognize that we’ve looked a lot more like faithless Israel in the desert, and deluded Jerusalem in the day of Jeremiah than the 1st century church at Antioch…

Maybe it’s time for us to let the God of 2 Samuel 12 confront our adulterous ways…

Maybe it’s time to plumb line our churches, our conferences, our ZOOM meetings and prayer gatherings to the fear of the Lord…

Maybe it’s time to abjectly humble ourselves, operate in a spirit of contrition, and repent in the ashes we’ve spent a generation producing in His Name.

JSB • June 26, 2022

Beginning with the Bridegroom fast in June, (June 6, 7 & 8) the Lord has put an unusual sobriety upon our little house. I’ve not spent so much time on my face since last summer when the Lord led us to pray through Jeremiah. I am accustomed to praying, “Father, give us ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to us.” For the past ten days I’ve been praying, “Father, give Your people a ‘WILL’ to hear what the Spirit saying to us.”

This is what I am hearing Him say: Our evangelical family has wielded violence against our nation. We’ve brought violence into our house and we wield it against our fellow Americans; our neighbors. We’ve attached false prophecy to our hearts while stoning His benevolent judgments. We’ve refused to repent. We smolder with a spirit of rebellion within His courts. We pray “revival”. How shall we receive the increase of His manifest reign if we choose to oppose the Lord’s reign in our own lives?

“23 The land is full of murder and the city is full of violence. 24 …I will put an end to the arrogance of the strong, and their sanctuaries will be desecrated. 25 Terror is coming! They will seek peace, but find none. 26 Disaster after disaster will come, and one rumor after another. They will seek a vision from a prophet; priestly instruction will disappear, along with counsel from the elders. 27 The king will mourn and the prince will be clothed with shuddering; the hands of the people of the land will tremble. Based on their behavior I will deal with them, and by their standard of justice I will judge them. Then they will know that I am the Lord!” (Ezekiel 7:23-27)

Just like the church in Laodicea, we’ve grown so dull to the Spirit of the Lord, we’re not even perceiving a severe judgment like this; a pronouncement that all heaven is acutely aware of.

“18…anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. 19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent.” (Revelation 3:18-19)

If we did understand it, a great sound of weeping and lament would overtake everyone of our conferences, our social media accounts, our gatherings and prayers. Instead, our silence testifies to our numb spirit.

The judgment of the Lord has come to American evangelicalism in the very same way that the prophet Nathan came to David in (2 Samuel 12). The prophet’s words to the king have parallel application to our own house in America…

7 Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man! (This indictment is directed at you!) Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. 8 I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your keeping, and gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if that had been too little, I also would have given you much more! 9 Why have you despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in His sight? You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword; you have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the people of Ammon. 10 Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’ 11 Thus says the Lord: ‘Behold, I will raise up adversity against you from your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. 12 For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, before the sun.’ ”13 So David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. 14 However, because by this deed you have given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also who is born to you shall surely die.” 15 Then Nathan departed to his house.

The enormous difference between the (2 Samuel 12) narrative and our own is that unlike David, our American evangelical family is turning Nathan away. We don’t even care to hear his words.

Questions:
1. If we, turn Nathan away, what will be our outcome? If David listened to Nathan, repented and still received two-thirds of the punishment apportioned to him, what happens to a people who care nothing for the prophetic analyses, and do not repent to the Lord?

For the last two weeks, (even before we had a sense of the Lord’s heaviness in this) our house of prayer has been praying from Hebrews 12. “25 See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. 26 For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven” (Hebrews 12:25-26)

2. How do we continue to plead for the Lord to bring His reign to our nation while we ourselves “refuse Him Who is speaking on earth”? (Hebrews 12:25)

3. Are not the judgments of our King just and true and righteous?
7 “Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are Your judgments.” (Revelation 16:7)

4. Is there not great security to be found in boldly approaching His throne of grace? Even if we want to justify our hostility against our nation how do we reconcile doing this while not first and primarily humbling ourselves and our own sins and infidelities before the God of all righteousness?

This is how I am praying for us as a people: I’m praying for Humility, contrition, and repentance in the fear of the Lord. Humility, contrition, and repentance in the fear of the Lord is the essential way forward in this hour.

Humility. Contrition. Repentance. And the fear of the Lord.

This is what we should wish to come upon us as a people.

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JSB • June, 17, 2022

I am hearing this scripture in so many places during this season. Especially in my own place of prayer.

The truth is, Hebrews 12:29 isn’t really a statement about the existential nature of our God. It’s a summons into God Himself. The God of our refuge.

It’s a plea to live an abandoned life unto His increase.

It’s a call to the Man, Jesus and to His gospel call for us to “take up our cross” (Luke 9:23).

It’s the gate into the inferno of first-commandment love and the fear of the Lord.

All who dare enter (Luke 14:28) this perfectly holy fire are consumed by the Eternal God Himself. THIS is the baptism of Pentecost. Indeed, this is baptism itself. There is no baptism that neglects the consumed life.

If we want to survive the God-ordained shaking that’s on the earth we must also understand: THE CONSUMED LIFE IS THE ONLY LIFE THAT WILL REMAIN. Put another way: If we’re not consumed by Him we WILL be consumed by something else. Let me say this again: If we’re not consumed by Him we WILL be consumed by something else.

This is the Lord’s intentional plan for the Church, so that His Son’s Bride comes forth prepared (Revelation 19:7), without spot, wrinkle or blemish, (Ephesians 5:26-27) wholly leaning on her Beloved (Song 8:5).

“Dear friends, do not be astonished that a trial by fire is occurring among you, as though something strange were happening to you.” (1 Peter 4:12)

In spite of the world’s illusory evidence to the contrary we must learn to walk with singular fidelity to the Voice of the One Who is bidding us into the fire of Himself. Again, THIS (and only this) is the veritable proposition of Pentecost.

This is also the deeply disturbing “why” beneath Annanias and Saphira’s fate in (Acts 5). They had entered into the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the indwelling God could not be disloyal and dishonest to Himself. Annanias and his wife were attempting to control the consuming nature of the Lord. And that which offers half-measures to the pure fire of the Lord Himself is the “strange fire” of Nadab and Abihu in (Leviticus 10:1-3).

In this next season, we will see a lot of “strange fire” that bills itself as “an offering unto the Lord” (Leviticus 9:22). It’s only those who dare to let God be Who He is in our lives who will experience anything that can be considered by heaven as true revival.

The Church cannot content herself with asking the question: “Who will dare enter into His fire?”. We must orient ourselves to asking, “Who will dare NOT enter into His fire?”

“This is what the Lord spoke, saying: ‘By those who come near Me I must be regarded as holy; and before all the people I must be glorified.’ ” (Leviticus 10:3)

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JSB • May 30, 2022